It takes a few moments to fully appreciate the comedy value of this seemingly ordinary classroom display. Which makes it all the better. The truth unvarnished of what learning entails and the perspective of the student is brilliant. The honesty of the teacher to leave it on display is to be applauded.

New school a ‘window into the future’ An article that is partly pablum, partly political presentation, and partly punctuated and grammared bad. Pablum: With solar panels on its roof, it is the first net-zero energy school in New Zealand. It has ultra-fast broadband, its own radio station, and large, open classrooms – without any desks. Political: ..but it’s the modern face of the future, and it’s what will be the hallmark of Christchurch as we build 21 of these schools as a result of the rebuild of Christchurch schools ...

Received this email today: Just looking at the wiki page and spotted a comment underneath one of the subject discussions…calling others a dick. Not the worst comment to make in the world I know but I’d hate the wiki to turn into some kind of facebook page where the kids can start insulting each other. Within our school, syndicates use wikis that are a mixture of public and private, with all students having a login that they manage and are expected to be responsible for. The aim with our shared wikispaces, is that they are online places where students can login, create content, share with others and comment on each others work. ...

Last Friday the 21st Century Learning Reference Group here in NZ released their “Future-focused learning in connected communities” report. The document is worth a read, but if you’re busy, read the summary. RadioNZ has already picked up the story, and reported these key points: ".. the ministry should recognise digital competencies as essential foundation skills. Defining and refining what “digital competencies” actually are, and deciding how to measure them will be problematic. The NZ curriculum, as far as I’m aware does not contain any standards or frameworks for what this ‘digital competence’ may look like. ...

“Everything’s going to be OK. What do you mean ‘going to be’? This is it. This is as good as it gets… This might be the best moment of your life. How much better do you want it? Not much. So.. enjoy it. Thanks for the tip.” This bit of dialogue is from the rather turgid Being Human - a Robin Williams film from 1994. I only recall this scene, because I jotted it down. It strikes me that in spite of the passage of time, this simple sentiment still applies. ...

Last week I was invited to present to the Ministerial Cross Sector Forum, to be part of a panel on Modern Learning Practice. The slot was 4 minutes, and the brief was to consider: what does modern learning practice look like in your context what challenges or opportunities do you see for making this the ‘norm’ across our system I presented alongside two representatives from the Ministry of Education, Barbara Cavanagh from ASHS, Lesley Murrihy from Amesbury and Karen Ramsey from Roskill South Kindergarten. ...

Do I need to shoot wolves or manage bears? Are we solving problems, (perceived or real) in our classrooms and schools by removing factors, eliminating the causes, or indeed building entirely new systems? Or are we investing in, and revising as needed, the existing processes that define our schools and classrooms.

I flew back from Christchurch on the weekend. Browsing through the AirNZ in-flight magazine, I stumbled upon an article about Lauren Boyle and the NZ Commonwealth Games team. Lauren Boyle is a world champion swimmer. The interview contained some interesting quotes, and I got to thinking about how the concepts in these quotes encapsulate the process of becoming and being a world champion swimmer. In turn, I started to think about how we can use these concepts to consider how we foster learning and effort in our students. ...

To “jump the shark” is a phrase coined to describe that point after which a show, a brand or a design has lost its way and begins a steady decline in quality. As Wikipedia puts it, the point at which a venture makes a “fundamental and generally disappointing change in direction”. I wonder at what point we in education will realise we’ve really jumped the shark on the point and purpose of technology, in the endeavour that we refer to as ’teaching and learning'. ...

My new favourite Tumblr. Bill Watterson’s visuals vs Frank Herbert’s words. Brilliant.

Dominic, You “call out” Giovanni Tiso, on the basis of several tweets, for having a supposed “inverted snobbery complex” by outlining all the ways and means by which you and Hashigo Zake set yourselves apart from other drinking establishments and cultures. Because you know, it’s OK to slag off Heineken or Corona, because it’s a shit beer, and by extension it’s OK to look down your nose at those that drink it. ...

Tom Whitby’s useful post outlines a plea to remove the technology aspect from the debate about education and learning. He asks the question, “When will we reach a point where we will discuss education, teaching and learning without having to debate technology?” To be honest, it’s the fascination with the shiny that drives even this sort of conversation. Conversations in which we discuss the validity of the letter ’e’ in e-learning. ...

Children The likelihood is the children will die without you to help them do it. It will be spring, the light on the water, or not. And though at present they live together they will not die together. They will die one by one and not think to call you: they will be old and you will be gone. It will be spring, or not. They may be crossing the road, not looking left, not looking right, ...

Each year I’ve prepared a reports for our BOT, outlining what we are doing with IT and e-learning. Term 4 always has a wrap-up of the year and a look ahead to the next. I finished this year’s report with this text. I’d like to think that every school community across Aotearoa is able to say the same. Our schools are, on the whole, and despite the often downwards spiral around our profession, places where many, many rich and rewarding opportunities occur every day. ...

Paul Brislen asked me to write a little piece for the TUANZ blog, and I’m grateful to him for offering to host my writing. I sent him this piece, and he was kind enough to let me run well over his normal word limit. I’ve made a few revisions and now post it here in two parts. Please comment and hold me to account. ==================================================================== If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster ...

In New Zealand education policy, the failure of Talent2 and the Ministry of Education to build and deliver the Novopay payroll system has been widely covered in the media. This failure occurred for a number of technical and contractual reasons, many of which have been laid out in reviews. The recently released Ministerial inquiry lays the blame for failure in a range of places. But in reading some of the timeline details, and the technical review I got the sense that during the process, failure was not tolerated or accepted. ...

We were at the Embassy, a crew screening Susan said, “Watch this, then go home… " Uncle Ritch said, with a laugh and a croak, “I got treated to a manicure today, that probably makes me a bit of a poof” He meant my Mum, who was up visiting for the final time She’d been looking after him he said And that out of the bad, many good things could come he said ...

“But it’s a corruption to start giving people what they want in story. Because the truth is, the audience is like a child. That’s not to say that they’re children, the audience is made up of a lot of different people. Some of them smart, some of them stupid. But if you ask them as a collective, ‘What do you want?’, they’ll always say ‘I want more of what I saw before that I liked.” ...

Currently we’re doing statistics and graphing in class, and I’ve enjoyed putting challenging visuals and infographics in front of students, and getting them to consider and critique them. I’ve used the wonderful Information is Beautiful site, in particular the really mind blowing Billion-Dollar-O-Gram. The ‘Mountains out of Molehills’ interactive was a challenge to their knowledge of recent history. In particular the gap at the September 2011 period took a while to sink in. ...

Exhibit A: Ministry of Education/ERO: Accelerating Learning for Priority Learners The Ministry of Education (the Ministry) has established a goal to increase the proportion of learners achieving at or above national literacy and numeracy standards. To achieve this goal, outcomes must improve for key priority groups, including Māori students that are not achieving well, Pacific students who are not achieving success, special needs students and those from low income families. Exhibit B: New York Times: T.S.A. Screening Is Not Objective ...